be plotting to kill humanity with the use of a large Deathwand device, and the destruction of the Farcasters was timed to allow for the destruction of this weapon as it passed through a Farcaster Portal to Hyperion. Because of the necessity of destroying the Deathwand weapon, the Farcaster network was destroyed without much advance notice. Thousands of people were killed while stepping through a Farcaster portal which suddenly closed mid-step, slicing them in half; hundreds more were lost to the gap between Farcasters. Parents working on different planets from their children suddenly found themselves separated by light years instead of a single step through a Farcaster portal. Riots swiftly followed the destruction of the WorldWeb, but it was the long-term effects of this action which devastated the Hegemony of Man. Worlds were so dependent on the Farcasters for importing foodstuffs that many planets began to starve. Essential medicines might only be available on a single world, which was suddenly years away. Some planetary systems suffered more than others: while Renaissance Minor was mostly agricultural land and capable of supporting Renaissance Vector, worlds like Heaven's Gate and Sol Draconi had their populations decimated and their terraforming efforts reversed over the next few hundred years, making the worlds uninhabitable again. Aenea's Revelations: The Truth about the Farcasters Over 270 years after the destruction of the WorldWeb and the Fall, the young woman Aenea, child of a human woman and AI cybrid, began to reveal the truth of the TechnoCore's motivations and involvement with humanity through the Pax Church. She also revealed the truth about the Farcasters. The TechnoCore built the Farcaster network and Fatline transmitters using the same principle, 'The Void Which Binds'. While the TechnoCore saw this as a Planck-dimension of huge energy with fantastic potential, Aenea revealed 'The Void Which Binds' to be an essential part of the universe, literally, the domain of love as a force. In investigating 'The Void Which Binds' , the TechnoCore also found lifeforms there, of such level of advancement that the AIs were frightened. Experiments carried out on the Void led to the development of the Fatline and the Farcaster network, both of which allowed travel through the Void but which were also were destructive to it. The AI TechnoCore had deliberately dropped a black hole into Earth's core in their attempt to destroy humanity, but when they came across the entities in